Trump Forgets Nuke Deals With Iran Already Exist
The war on Iran has proven one thing with crystal clarity: Trump is a terrible negotiator.
Us Secrecy Costs Hit Record High
By Cliff Montgomery – July 30th, 2010Federal officials in 2009 charged taxpayers a record $9.93 billion to pay for the classification of activitiesperformed by both government and industry, according to…
Government Secrecy Risks Lives
By Cliff Montgomery – July 26th, 2010White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says the documents on Afghanistan released today by WikiLeaks”pose a very real threat” to American forces–even as he…
Top Secret America
By Cliff Montgomery – July 19th, 2010A massive and largely unaccountable spy network created by the U.S. government shortly after 9/11 now is sohuge that it may be impossible to…
Us Detainess Medical Experiments
By Cliff Montgomery – July 13th, 2010Last month, a white paper released by the medical group Physicians for Human Rights discussed a harrowing matter:”Investigation and analysis of US government documents…
Us Intelligence Update Failing
By Cliff Montgomery – July 7th, 2010The intelligence reform law which created a National Intelligence director and was to integrate and modernize America’s spy community has in many ways been…
Memo On Recording Interrogations
By Cliff Montgomery – June 22nd, 2010An important Pentagon directive was released in May, apparently meant to ensure the public that future interrogations of those in U.S. military custody follow…
Private Companies In War
By Cliff Montgomery – May 29th, 2010The federal government’s reliance on private companies for its overseas operations–including war–was thesubject of a very interesting hearing conducted in February 2008 before the…
State Secrets Privilege
By Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 19th, 2010The Executive Branch’s ‘state secrets’ privilege continues to be a controversial issue for U.S. legal experts and all others interested in protecting our civil…
DHS Hiding Records
By Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 24th, 2010When Congress passed the Privacy Act in 1974, it ruled that each person’s right to privacy is fundamental to aworking democracy and that this…
Declassification Does Not Work
By Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 14th, 2010Executive branch departments and agencies in recent years have spent over a billion dollars to declassifyfederal records–but have produced few tangible results.Two executive orders…
Feds May Kill Us Citizens
By Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 9th, 2010A Washington Post article printed on January 27th held a remarkable statement:”Both the CIA and the JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command of the Department…
Military Commissions
By Cliff Montgomery – Dec. 27th, 2009The United States for the last several years has used military commissions to try suspected terroristsdetained at Guantanamo and elsewhere.In a criminal trial, the…
Aclu Domestic Spying
By Cliff Montgomery – Oct. 10th, 2009 Three provisions of the Bush-era Anti-Patriot Act are set to expire on December 31st – Congress currently is debating controversial legislation to renew…
Anti Patriot Act
By Cliff Montgomery – Oct. 5th, 2009The Senate Judiciary Committee last week began its debate of legislation intended to extend three provisionsof the Bush-era Anti-Patriot Act which are set to…
Government Secrecy
By Cliff Montgomery – Sept. 18th, 2009The Congressional Research Service (CRS) on August 31st released a intriguing study entitled, Access to Government Information In the United States.It reminds us that…
FISA Lawsuit Dismissal
By Cliff Montgomery – Aug. 30th, 2009A federal court on Aug. 20th threw out a lawsuit which challenged the legality of the FISA Amendments Act(FAA)–a controversial law that allows the…
Pentagon Intelligence Lacks Oversight
By Cliff Montgomery – July 31st, 2009The House Intelligence Committee last month stated that the Pentagon has clouded the distinction betweenordinary intelligence collection–which is overseen by congressional intelligence panels–and “clandestine”military…
Bush Spy Program
By Cliff Montgomery – July 15th, 2009Congress in 2008 instructed intelligence agency Inspectors General to draft an unclassified study on the BushAdministration’s domestic spying program. That report was released on…
Classified Information Costs
By Cliff Montgomery- July 10th, 2009America’s post-9/11 security classification system appears to cost taxpayers around $10 billion every year,states a recent government study.Data classification activities in government and industry totaled…
UNesco Freedom Of Information
By Cliff Montgomery – June 12th, 2009There’s been a lot of talk over the last few years on precisely what–if anything–the American people need to know about their government: how…
Abu Ghraib Guards
By Cliff Montgomery – May 11th, 2009When photos of torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison surfaced in 2004, Bush Administration officials quicklypainted Army Private Charles Graner Jr. as the de-facto…
Dod Called Bush Interrogation Torture
By Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 27th, 2009A Pentagon agency which advised the Bush Administration against the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects flatly called the employment of extreme…
Bush Renditions
By Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 21st, 2009An eye-opening Congressional Research Service report issued on January 21st, 2009, the day afterPresident Obama took office, discussed the explosive subject of rendition–which the…